Danny Craig wants Augusta and Richmond County to get more OPM - Other People's Money.

On the eve of the opening of the new Target-Kohl's shopping complex in Evans, the district attorney said during a breakfast meeting with community group leaders that new retail outlets aren't enough to get the cheese.

Basing an economy on retail and services alone is "like putting a thimble of gasoline in your car and trying to get to the coast," Mr. Craig said.

His comments came at the Tuesday Morning Roundtable, a meeting of city officials, staff, businesses and community groups that convene to discuss problems and development in Augusta.

Mr. Craig said there were "only three ways a local economy gets other people's money": by making things, through tourism, and through what he called "tax roulette" - getting more state and federal tax dollars than it pays in.

While Augusta has done well in the last department, it must get in more manufacturing and tourism, he said.

Leaders have to understand how to get both, Mr. Craig said, and show businesses that the community provides good education, is run efficiently and provides good services for tax dollars paid.

Others differed with Mr. Craig's views on retail. Janie Peel, of Prime Commercial Properties, who helps put the roundtable together, said having retail in Augusta does keep money in the local economy.

Brenda Durant, the executive director of the Greater Augusta Arts Council, said having interesting "intentional retail" would help Augusta's convention business by giving those who attend and their families something else to do during breaks from meetings.

"We'd want people to fill their bags, to be shopping ... and feel like it was a great convention," she said.

Some at the breakfast groused about the way Augusta is perceived by outsiders, including potential new industry, a perception made worse, they said, by local news media.

Mr. Craig countered that local leaders might not be getting "the good news" out.

Mayoral candidate Tommy Boyles went further by saying: "Augusta has an inferiority complex, that it's going to hell in a handbasket. It's not."

Reach Jeremy Craig at (706) 823-3409 or jeremy.craig@augustachronicle.com.

Danny Craig: District attorney said Augusta needs more money from tourism and production.